SPECTRUM 13

This piece called "incantation" is in the new issue of Spectrum The best Of Contemporary Fantastic Art. The book continues to grow in size every year and I'm always blown away with the incredible work featured!


www.spectrumfantasticart.com

He Rises

I have to give Gary Pressman from the Copro Nason gallery a big thanks for adding this painting in thier first book. It's a fifteen year anniversary retrospective of all the artists they have represented. Some of my fav's including Joe Vaux, and Chet Zar are featured.

http://www.copronason.com/

AMBUSH

A while back I bought a giant book of Eyvind Earle's paintings. I never get tired of looking at his work! I'm amazed at how beautiful his images are and how direct and minimal he executed his art. After I sketched this out I had a rough time trying to figure out how to handle the color scheme. After many tries I turned to Eyvind for inspiration . It was a fun experiment adding his style to one of my favorite subjects.....Ninja vs Samurai.

THE EVENT

Last nights Family Guy art show and DVD release party was a pretty sweet event indeed!! Highlights include the Theme Park sized Brian and Stewie walking around. As the artists arrived we were greeted at the door with an orange " NOT RED" carpet and a ton of press folk interviewing and taking lots of pics! There's me acting like Mr Bigshot and trying to think of somthing humorous to say. I drank it up because I figure this will be the first and LAST time I'm walking a premier carpet! There's a great shot of Alex Borstien " the voice of Lois" in a sexy pose! Although I think she may of had a rock in her shoe. The artwork was amazing and it was great to meet the artists. I've shown my painting enough on this blog so I posted a few of my fav's in the show. The one with Brian holding the champagne is by Spencer Laudiero and the Stewie with the fez is by Kathy Olivas. That's my wife Joy with Stewie and also next to the mammoth martini glass. Spencer Laudiero and his Fiance Rachael MacFarlane stand proudly in front of his painting. The smiley trio are myself, Annie Mcmillan, and the world famous Joe Vaux.

FAMILY GUY ART EXHIBIT

What the deuce are you staring at!?!

JUXTAPOZ

Again with the STEWIE KILLS LOIS painting! Yes once again the Family Guy group show will be featured at the Museum of Television & Radio. The openening is wednesday night and should be well covered since the head honcho and creator Seth MacFarlane will be there. I also was amazed to hear that this exhibit will be traveling world wide to different animation galleries. Click on the above links to read about it!

AGE 5?

In my search for old highschool artwork my dad dug up a 3 ring binder full of drawings I created when I was a young lad. I really dig the scarry looking snow shovel that Conan is wielding. The spear-like shovel that Smokey the bear holds is quite a threat as well! But I think the crowning achievment is matching Spiderman against The Riddler!! Truley visionary. Thanks dad for saving these.

Highschool Drawings

After the wedding Joy and I stayed on the east coast for two weeks visiting friends,family, and our favorite haunts. It also gave me some time to crawl into my dads attic and fish out some ancient drawings that i haven't seen in years! I know many artists don't like to view their highschool work, but for me it brings me back to my days of reading comics, watching thundercats, and desperately trying achieve the quality and feel of artists Like Frank Frazetta. Here are a few drawings from when I had nothing but TIME to render 100 ninja's battling one samurai. I miss those days!

THE WEDDING

Yep...I haven't posted anything for two months and now you know why!! I'm still basking in the glow of marital merriness!! Joy and I tied the knot"literally" september ninth on the tiny island of Monhegan off the coast of Maine. Here are some pics of the main event, the hotel, and some of the great old homes planted around the island. Joy looked amazingly beautiful and the weather was PERFECT! We were blessed with friends and family who journeyed far to be with us for a few days. Thanks everyone for making that weekend so special.

WHOVILLE GETS NUKED!

I managed to squeeze in a new painting between storyboarding and planning the wedding! This was another painting for a show at the M Modern Gallery in Palm Springs. The theme of course was Dr Seuss. I honestly couldn't think of anything to do with that world so I just blew it up.I'm happy overall with this piece but it was a difficult task. I almost bit off more than I could chew!!

Stewie's Dream

The Family Guy gallery show in NY is down now so I think it's safe to post this again. Before the paintings were shipped the Fox licensing dept. brought them over to the studio for a quick viewing and they all looked amazing!! I heard they might be doing the same show somewhere in LA in the future.

Rain

I was a little frustrated durring the making of this sketch. I just remember needing a routine break and released some fury with the grey markers.

ADAM WEST EXHIBIT

Although I have no photos of Adam West from the Gotham exhibit, I do have pics of my supportive friends!

FAMILY GUY / STAR WARS EXHIBIT

Ok first off, I've worked at a lot of places in my career and have been at some cool work related events but this one was by far the most exciting. One of our Family Guy directors Zac Moncrief decided to put together an art exhibit with a
Star Wars theme. 26 of us picked a slip of paper out of a hat with a letter from the alphabet. We then created an image from Star Wars based on the letter. I.E. R is for RANCOR...which happened to be mine. The result was AMAZING!! Everybody created fantastic works of art. And to sweeten the deal we had a silent auction so everyone walked away with fatter wallets. Here are a few pics from last fridays event. You can see my goofy mug underneath my piece. The two smiling dudes are (left) Spencer Laudiero (right) Joe Vaux. I think they may have been drinking that night.

BATMAN finished

I finally finished!! MAN it feels good to paint again. This came out less gloomy than I intended. ( see color sketch below ) But overall I'm happy with the results. I gave my friend Marc Heon a little plug for his Kung Fu school on the billboard.

Darth Maul

Here's an old sketch from 1999. I seem to remember that Darth Maul was the only character I was inspired to draw from The Phantom Menace. Pretty sad!!

Stewie Dreams

This image will return in a few months. I was informed that the painting could not be posted until after the show in New York was over. Okay okay FINE it's gone ...SEE??!!

Oil Studies

BATMAN

This is a color sketch that went a tad to far. When I work in photoshop I tend to get carried away to the point where the sketch becomes dangerously close to being the final. Nothing wrong with that except this is a sketch for an OIL PAINTING. Again working digitally can become a crutch!! No worries. The painting will happen. I have to thank Joe Vaux for the genesis of this piece. Joe's amazing work has been making it's way through LA galleries for the last decade and he got me into a group show coming soon at the M Modern Gallery in Palm Springs. As odd as it may seem, the paintings of Adam West will be the main attraction while a handful of artists will be displaying work with a Gotham/Batman theme.

Stewie Sketch

I'm currently working at Family Guy as a storyboard artist. Recently the mothership ( FOX ) offered a few of us some extra buck's to do FG themed paintings for an exhibit coming soon in New York. I've been wanting to paint with actual PAINT for a while now so I jumped at it. Actually we can do the image in whatever medium we want but it's an excuse to PAINT again. I'm glad I began with these sketches first because frankly I'm out of practice with oil's. Working in photoshop becomes a real crutch, and if you haven't painted in a while it can be scary going back!! I'll post the finished piece when it's dry.

KRANG

Someone at work was talking about the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show back in the eightie's. We all agreed that Krang was one of the best character's and I'm sure you do as well..... RIGHT??? Yeah that's what I thought. Anyway I tried to remember what he looked like and did this sketch.

Cato

I think most artist's who own cat's feel the urge to draw them. They're amazing creatures and sometimes they'll sit still for you. This guy is named Cato.....No....not after Kato Calin. How incredibly lame would that be?? I named him after Cato from the Pink Panther movies. His claws are like sabers and his tail is a tad longer than most cat's but he's a damn cool feline!

Shavo

Again with the post-it's!!! What can I say.They're handy, I go through about 200 a day while storyboarding, and they seem to be replacing my sketchbook. In fact lately I've been just pasting them IN my sketchbook. Whatever works right?! A while back I actually had NOTHING to do at work. So I took about an hour and a half and did this drawing of Shavo Odadjian. In case you're wondering "Who the hell is that?" He's the bass player for System of a Down. I had a photo of him from an old Revolver magazine. He has this great maniacal look to him that was begging to be drawn!

Oil Sketch

I like to use a rub out technique where I brush on a dark color and then wipe out areas with a rag. It's a fun way to work because I usually have no particular idea what I'm going to create. I just start wiping off areas and see what happens. I might go back to this one digitally and add more color.

Witches

A few witch designs.

Alien

Giger's alien design is so damn fun to play with. I tried a fish-like design with this one. Ballpoint pen on paper and painted in photoshop.

Tiki

what can I say....I dig Tiki heads!!

Study

A life study from this past weekend. Charcoal on Canson paper.

Guy in line

I saw this guy in line waiting to see Revenge of the Sith. Since I didn't have a camera handy I did the next best thing. It's slightly exaggerated, but overall it's pretty accurate!! Drawn on paper and painted in Photoshop.

Miller Style

I was reading Sin City and felt inspired to draw something in Frank Miller's style of chiaroscuro.

Marker Comp

I tend to do loose grey marker comps and then find some structure within the abstract shapes. Once I see something like a creature or robot I begin refining it.

Scribble Fish

This one started as a meaningless scribble to test a pencil out. I noticed an eye in the middle of the page and it evolved from there.